History

Early years

The club was formed in 1892 as BFC Hertha 92, taking its name from a steamship with a blue and white smokestack.[1] One of the four young men who founded the club had taken a day trip on this ship with his father. The name Hertha is a variation on Nerthus referring to fertility goddess from Germanic mythology.

The ship that gave name to the club.

Hertha performed consistently well on the field, including a win in the first Berlin championship final in 1905.[1] In May 1910, Hertha won a friendly match against Southend United F.C., which was considered significant at the time as England was where the game originated and English clubs dominated the sport.[1] However, their on-field success was not matched financially and in 1920 the staunchly working-class[2] Hertha merged with the well-heeled club Berliner Sport-Club to form Hertha Berliner Sport-Club.[1] The new team continued to enjoy considerable success in the Oberliga Berlin-Brandenburg, while also enduring a substantial measure of frustration. The team played its way to the German championship final in six consecutive seasons from 1926 to 1931, but were only able to come away with the title in 1930 and 1931[1] with BSC leaving to become an independent club again after the combined side's first championship. Even so, Hertha emerged as the Germany's second most successful team during the inter-war years.

Play under the Third Reich

German football was re-organized under the Third Reich in 1933 into sixteen top-flight divisions, which saw Hertha playing in the Gauliga Berlin-Brandenburg. The club continued to enjoy success within their division, regularly finishing in the upper half of the table and capturing the divisional title in 1935, 1937, and 1944. However, they faded from prominence, unable to advance out of the early rounds of the national championship rounds. Politically, the club was overhauled under Hitler, with Hans Pfeifer, a Nazi party member being installed as president.[1][3]

Postwar play

After World War II, occupying Allied authorities banned most organizations in Germany, including sports and football clubs. Hertha was re-formed late in 1945 as SG Gesundbrunnen and resumed play in the Oberliga Berlin – Gruppe C. The thirty-six teams of the first season of the postwar Oberliga Berlin were reduced to just a dozen the next year and the club found itself out of first division football and playing in the Amateurliga Berlin. By the end of 1949, they had re-claimed their identity as Hertha BSC Berlin and earned a return to the top-flight.

Tensions between the western Allies and the Soviets occupying various sectors of the city, and the developing Cold War, led to chaotic conditions for football in the capital. Hertha was banned from playing against East German teams in the 1949–50 season after taking on several players and a coach who had fled the Dresden club SG Friedrichstadt for West Berlin.[1] A number of sides from the eastern half of the city were forced from the Oberliga Berlin to the newly established DDR-Liga beginning with the 1950–51 season.

Through the 50's an intense rivalry developed with Tennis Borussia Berlin. A proposal for a merger between the two clubs in 1958 was resoundingly rejected, with only three of the 266 members voting in favour.[1]

Being a major Berlin side, Hertha had fans in the whole of Berlin, but following the division of the city, supporters in East Berlin found if both difficult and dangerous to follow their beloved team. In interviews with the long time supporter Helmut Klopfleisch, he describes his difficulties as a supporter in East Berlin. Klopfleisch came from the district of Pankow and attending his first home match as a young boy in 1954 he became an instant supporter.[4] He continued to attend home matches at the stadium, but with the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961, this became impossible. Despite this, he did not give up. By this time, Hertha played at the Stadion am Gesundbrunnen, nicknamed Die Plumpe. The stadium was located close enough to the Berlin wall for the sounds from the stadium to be heard over the wall. Thus, Klopfleisch and other supporter gathered behind the wall to listen to the home matches. When the crowd at the stadium cheered, Klopfleisch and the others cheered as well.[4][5][6][7] Klopfleisch later came under suspicion by Stasi, the East German secret police. He was arrested and interrogated at numerous occasions.[6] He also had his passport confiscated and eventually lost his job as an electrician.[6][8]

Entry to the Bundesliga

At the time of the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963, Hertha was Berlin's reigning champion and so became an inaugural member of the new professional national league.[9] In spite of finishing clear of the relegation zone, the team was demoted after the 1964–65 season following attempts to bribe players to play in the city under what had become decidedly unpleasant circumstances after the erection of the Berlin Wall.[9] This caused something of a crisis for the Bundesliga which wanted, for political reasons, to continue to have a team in its ranks representing the former capital. Through various machinations this led to the promotion of SC Tasmania 1900 Berlin, which then delivered the worst-ever performance in Bundesliga history. Hertha managed a return to the premier German league in 1968–69 and developed a solid following, making it Berlin's favorite side.[10]

However, Hertha was again soon touched by scandal through its involvement with several other clubs in the Bundesliga match fixing scandal of 1971. In the course of an investigation of Hertha's role, it was also revealed that the club was 6 million DM in debt. Financial disaster was averted through the sale of the team's former home ground.[10]

In spite of this, the team continued to enjoy a fair measure of success on the field through the 70's with a second place Bundesliga finish behind Borussia Mönchengladbach in 1974–75,[10] a semi-final appearance in the 1979 UEFA Cup,[10] and two appearances in the final of the German Cup (1977 and 1979).[10] The following season saw the fortunes of the team take a turn for the worse as they were relegated to 2. Bundesliga[11] where they would spend thirteen of the next seventeen seasons.

Plans in 1982 for a merger with Tennis Borussia Berlin, SpVgg Blau-Weiß 1890 Berlin and SCC Berlin to form a side derisively referred to as FC Utopia never came to fruition.[11] Hertha slipped as low as the third tier Amateur Oberliga Berlin where they spent two seasons (1986–87 and 1987–88).[11] Two turns in the Bundesliga (1982–83[11] and 1990–91) saw the team immediately relegated after poor performances. Hertha's amateur side enjoyed a greater measure of success, advancing all the way to the final of the German Cup in 1993 where their run ended in a close 0–1 defeat at the hands of Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen.[12]

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hertha became a popular side in East Berlin as well. Two days after the wall came down, 11,000 East Berliners attended Hertha's match against SG Wattenscheid.[12] A fan friendship with 1. FC Union Berlin developed, and a friendly match between the two attracted over 50,000 spectators.[12]

Financial woes once more burdened the club in 1994 as it found itself 10 million DM in debt.[12] The crisis was again resolved through the sale of real estate holdings in addition to the signing of a new sponsor and management team.[13] By 1997 Hertha found its way back to the Bundesliga[13] where they generally managed to finish in the upper third of the slate. When Hertha was promoted in 1997, it ended Berlin's six-year-long drought without a Bundesliga side which had made the Bundesliga the only top league in Europe without representation from its country's biggest city and capital.

Recent history

Most recently, bright spots for the side have been a continuous string of appearances in international play in the UEFA Cup and the UEFA Champions League beginning in the 1999 season, and the signing of players such as Sebastian Deisler and Brazilian international Marcelinho, named the Bundesliga's player of the year in May 2005. Hertha has also invested heavily in its own youth football academy, which has produced several players with Bundesliga potential.

The team was almost relegated in the 2003–04 season, but rebounded and finished fourth the following season, but missed out on the Champions League after they were held to a draw on the final day by Hannover 96, which saw Werder Bremen overtake them for the spot on the final day. As a thank-you gesture, Werder sent the Hannover squad ninety-six bottles of champagne. In 2005–06 the Herthaner finished sixth, qualified for the UEFA Cup by defeating FK Moskva in the Intertoto Cup but were eliminated in the first round of the UEFA Cup by Odense BK. In 2006–07 Hertha finished 10th after sacking manager Falko Götz on 11 April. Hertha started the 2007–08 season with a new manager, Lucien Favre who had won the Swiss Championship in 2006 and 2007 with FC Zürich. They finished 10th again, but started in the first qualification round of the UEFA Cup via the Fair Play Ranking, making it as far as the group stage in the tournament. After a successful campaign in 2008–09 season, finishing in fourth place and remaining in the title race up until the second to last matchday, they had a very poor season in 2009–10 season and finished at the very bottom of the Bundesliga.

Stadium

The stadium has a permanent capacity of 74,475 seats,[15] making it the largest stadium in Germany in terms of seating capacity and the second largest stadium in Germany, behind the Signal Iduna Park in Dortmund, in terms of total capacity. For certain football matches, such as those against FC Bayern München, the capacity can be temporarily expanded. This is made by the addition of mobile grandstand over the Marathon Arch. The extended capacity reached 76,197 seats in 2014.[16][17]

The stadium underwent major renovations twice, in 1974 and from 2000 to 2004. In both cases, the renovations were for the upcoming World Cup. In the 1974 upgrades, the stadium received a partial roof. It underwent a thorough modernisation for the 2006 World Cup. In addition, the colour of the track was changed to blue to match Hertha's club colours. In addition to Hertha's home games, Olympiastadion serves as one of the home grounds for the German national football team, and it hosts concerts, track and field competitions, and the annual German Cup final. It was also the site for six matches of the 2006 FIFA World Cup including the tournament final.

From 1904, Hertha's home ground was the Plumpe in the city's Gesundbrunnen district . A stadium was built there in 1923 with a capacity of 35,000 (3,600 seats). The club left the stadium when it joined the Bundesliga in 1963. Hertha returned to the site during the Regionalliga years from 1965 to 1968. The sale of the site in 1971 helped the club avoid bankruptcy.

Statistics

Women's football

Missing out on a trend of promoting women's football,[24] Hertha became one of a decreasing number of major German football clubs left outside the top of women's football. Several steps had been taken to develop women's football, but most of them ended up inconclusive. The change came in 2009, when the club announced that it was to launch a cooperation in women's football with 1. FC Lübars, a football club from the Berlin borough Reinickendorf and with decades of history in women's football.[25]

From one side, the partnership meant that Hertha was to provide Lübars with various forms of support, including financial support,[25] expertise in licensing and sponsor acquisition, equipment and training instruction – investing approximately 1 million Euros in the project.[26] From the other side, the partnership meant that Lübars was to compete in the colours of Hertha,[24] thus earning the nickname "Die Hertha-Frauen" ("The Hertha-women"). In the long run, the club plans for the team of 1. FC Lübars to be integrated with Hertha BSC.[25][26] 1. FC Lübars now competes in the 2. Bundesliga of women's football.